Customer Reviews

Mastering the American Accent with Audio CDs

5 star:		(30)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

For the past few years, I've been searching and trying different books on how to speak standard American English to reduce my accent and ultimately increase my confidence at work and in life, but I've never found one book that really addresses my issues until I used this book.

Reading the book and listening to the CD make me feel that the author truly understands my issues and frustrations. The book demonstrates each pronunciation with practice words and sentences which are simple and easily understood. Those practice words and sentences showed me that I have been pronouncing words incorrectly but wouldn't have known this otherwise. Moreover, I can apply those examples immediately in my daily conversations.

The other merit of this book that I really like is that this book goes beyond the pronunciation. It also teaches you the rules of which word and syllable need to be stressed and which are not. I've been applying these rules. I feel that those rules have helped my intonation when I speak. I learned a lot about how Americans link words together. I use to pronounce thing word by word. This made my speech sound artificial. I love the exercises on linking. You cannot sound like a native speaker is you don't link words.

I also like the section of Native Language Guide section which lists common issues of different languages. I didn't know why Chinese accent is different from Russian's accent. It makes me feel that this book is customized to my needs.

I highly recommend this book. You will benefit it tremendously by following the book's instructions and applying to your daily life.

Audio is helpful and this book provides it. However, being able to see on video how the sounds are actually made is also very helpful, which is why I also suggest Lose Your Accent in 28 Days. That has a CD-rom with video clips on it that show how to form your mouth to make vowel and consonant sounds.

This is the 3rd similar book I have bought in the past few years and this one hands down is the most useful for me because of how easy it is to follow. I have been an American English speaker for the past 15 years and am always looking for ways to sound more "American" and I am amazed at how much I have learned just by reading a few chapters. There are things that I haven't seen any other similar books mention like "Linking words in American". I highly recommend this book for beginners and advanced speakers just trying to perfect their American accent

Are you sometimes misunderstood by your American co-workers or customers - even though you have lived in the United Staes for years? Do you sometimes mispronounce words causing needless confusion and sometimes stress? Do you give professional presentations and want the native English speaking audience to clearly understand your words and ideas? Have you been looking for an excellent self-study guide to improve your American English pronunciation?

If so, you will find this exceptional pronunciation book and audio CDs quite helpful in "mastering the American accent." Written by Lisa Mojsin, a Santa Monica professor and linguist who works with professionals to gain an American accent, this systematic book respects the time, intelligence, linguistic needs, and social desires of English language learners. Each self-contained chapter provides a practical lesson with clear instructions. The compelling CDs provide an effective tool to hear and practice the sounds. I also appreciate the number of inspiring quotes throughout the book that recognize the sophistication and culture of the book's readers.

Like Targeting Pronunciation Communicating Clearly in English (Book with 5 CDs), Mastering the American Accent with Audio CDssystematically reviews the most difficult sounds and easily confused words in English for ESL and EFL students and provides excellent audio CDS. And like Planaria Price's outstanding Realistically Speaking: A Practical Approach to the Basic Sounds and Rhythms of American English, Mojsin provides a cultural context and bias toward what works in creating the core sounds in American English for adult immigrants. This excellent pronunciation book, however, combines the best parts of both Targeting Pronunciation and Realistically Speaking in a powerful, practical book that identifies effective methods to reduce accents and improve clarity for business professionals.

As an ESL teacher who focuses more on fluency and comprehension than pronunciation drills and absolute mastery of American accents, I learned many valuable tips from this book. This book will make me a better teacher in correcting pronunciation errors, especially for professionals who are already basically comprehensible and still want to "sound like an American". This book is a real contribution and fills a clear need in the increasingly diverse American workplace. If you only buy one pronunciation book to improve your American English, this is it.

Dorood Every one,

I found great chapter for Persian(Farsi)speakers in this book.

I recommend this book to all Iranian live in US or any body try to learn American English Pronunciation.

Roozbeh

Good book:

- very systematic, starts with vowels, compares them, then the consonants
- then the words to stress, then the intonation

You really have to record yourself to hear how you sound, then you can correct yourself.

French people have a hard time to correct their accent, this book is for them. It's not a huge book and it contains everything. We should have it at school!

I checked out this book for some friends, comparing it with "American Accent Training." Both books are quite good.

A key thing I realized in these books is that while pronunciation and accent are related, they are different. Somebody can have perfect pronunciation, one sound at a time, but still have the words and sentences not sound right.

Examples: Which part of the word has the accent? How about phrases were sound-wise, certain words are merged to sound like one word? Or of course the words that when said on their own sound one way, but said in the middle of a sentence sound fairly different. And then just the sheer musicality of a sentence that makes it sound like native pronunciation or not.

My impression is that "American Accent Training" does a better job on the subtle and more advanced points, but that "Mastering the American Accent" goes over the basic sounds more thoroughly, and thus is a bit earlier in the learning stage.

On a related note, in working with friends on pronunciation, I've noticed one challenge is for them to simply be able to faithfully produce certain sounds. It's a matter of mastering the physical mouth--lips--tongue--throat stuff to getting the right sounds. If this is your struggle, and you can find a DVD or computer program that shows how to make those sounds, I'd recommend it.

One more thing: if you learned your English in school in a foreign country and were tested on spelling, you probably have a bunch of un-learning to do. English spelling is a terrible guide for how to pronunce words.

Good luck!

I tutored an advanced student of English for nearly a year before finding this book. I wish I'd had it from the beginning! Many of the finer points of tongue placement, what happens to different sounds and syllables when speaking quickly, etc. were often difficult to explain. This book lays them all out in a very concise fashion. It has proved enormously helpful. Furthermore, the CDs relieved me of the task of making my own recordings. I highly recommend this for anyone teaching advanced American English.

I got this for my husband who just came to the U.S.from Bangladesh just over a year ago. He knows English fluently but he still has a strong accent so it can be hard for some people to understand him fully. This book and cds have helped him pronounce words better so that more people can understand as well. I would recommend it for someone who knows English fairly well but may still have some trouble with pronouncing certain letters and having a strong accent.

I'm a owner of a restaurant with a 30 year history in NYC. This book gives me enough info to correct my accent I never though I had.The CD is the best, it alone is enough to correct your accent.